The Florida recount seems so long ago.

In the fall of 2000, Joe Lieberman was still a Democrat, and all Democrats were committed to making sure that every vote in Florida was counted. Now, it's the official policy of the Democratic National Committee not to count any of the votes from this year's Democratic primary because Florida voted out of turn. Never mind that it was a Republican-controlled legislature that mischievously pushed up the date. As of the moment, it's official Democratic policy that no Florida primary votes should count. And we all know what happened to Joe Lieberman.

Watching a screening of HBO's Recount in Washington earlier this week, I couldn't help but be struck by how much of our politics has changed. The Bush years decimated the Republican brand, and Al Gore staged the greatest comeback in modern memory--from pariah to Cassandra.

Thanks to able direction from Jay Roach, who did the Meet the Fockers and Austin Powersmovies, the film is fun, never taking itself too seriously but also noting that the stakes in Florida were real. The movie is a powerful reminder of just how deftly the Republicans once outmaneuvered the Democrats.

After Bill Clinton's vice president took back his concession to then-governor George W. Bush in a testy exchange in which Gore told the Texan, "You don't have to be snippy," the Republicans flooded Florida with lawyers and sent in James Baker, the former Treasury and State departments secretary. The Democrats handed the operation over to Warren Christopher, Clinton's first secretary of State.

In Recount, Christopher is played by John Hurt as woefully out of touch. He doesn't want to go to court because he thinks it would demean the presidency. Meanwhile, Baker and his minions were filing briefs like mad. Eventually Christopher, faced with a family illness, hands the reins to Ron Klain, a Gore aide who had been pushed aside during the 2000 presidential race. Klain rose through Christopher's Los Angeles-based firm, O'Melveny & Myers, but he was much more combative than his boss. He galvanizes the Democratic effort and succeeds in getting Florida's Supreme Court to extend the deadline and to order recounts throughout the state, even as Bush appointee, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris--played with garish makeup and over-the-top aplomb by Laura Dern--tries to shut down the recount.

We all know how the story ends, of course. The U.S. Supreme Court takes the case and orders the recount stopped. In its ruling, the court deems that there's no time left to restart the recount. Game over.

Even the recruitment of high-profile lawyer David Boies--played with earnestness by Ed Begley Jr., his blond locks darkened for the role--isn't enough to stop a Supreme Court bent on using the 14th Amendment, of all things, to stop the voting.

Deftly scripted, Bush and Gore never appear on camera except in film clips and faraway shots. The story is about the aides, Baker (played with an eerie resemblance by Tom Wilkinson) and Klain (Kevin Spacey), and how they tried to outfox each other, interpreting law on the fly. That wouldn't seem to be a ratings bonanza for HBO. It's not a corset movie, a period piece that will sweep the Emmys, and there's neither nudity nor car chases. But it's more proof that HBO does history better than any other studio.

After Chris Albrecht, HBO's supreme leader, was forced out of his post last year following accusations that he had struck his girlfriend, there were doubters--folks who thought that Albrecht's golden touch couldn't be replaced and there'd never be another Sopranos or Six Feet Under or Sex and the City. But HBO's done well. In Treatment, derived from an Israeli television series about a psychiatrist and his patients, is a critical success. And John Adams was addictive. Anyone who worried about HBO's fate shouldn't anymore. Yes, there was the incomprehensible John from Cincinnati from the great creator of Deadwood, David Milch. But for the most part, HBO is as good as ever. Watch Recount and see.

PHOTO: Ed Begley Jr. and Kevin Spacey play key Democratic figures in the 2000 election fight, in the HBO film Recount.